


how one ought to be

by clickingkeyboards



Series: Asexual!George [1]
Category: Murder Most Unladylike Series - Robin Stevens
Genre: Asexual!George, Asexuality, Best Friends, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Coming Out, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 07:48:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28347909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clickingkeyboards/pseuds/clickingkeyboards
Summary: When Alexander is flustered by a flirtatious letter from Hazel Wong, George is forced to confront something that he has been ignoring for months: maybe he is not simply going to mature into wanting intimacy.Maybe that simply isn’t for him at all.
Relationships: Alexander Arcady & George Mukherjee, George Mukherjee and Lavinia Temple (mentioned)
Series: Asexual!George [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2108283
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	how one ought to be

“Are you okay?” George asked me bluntly, peering over at me where I was pressing my face into a pillow in a red-faced fluster.

I waved a hand towards the letter by my feet and George regarded me with a deductive gaze, making the sensible assessment to not pick it up. “Hazel?”

Nodding, I mumbled, “She’s got... terribly bold recently.”

“In... that way?” he queried in a sharp tone, dark eyes fixed on me.

“Yes.” My reply was awkward and stilted, frightfully embarrassed to be talking about things like that with another boy who had his head screwed on in the same way as me in regards to romance — or so I thought. “I mean... I suppose I rather began it but I hardly thought she’d continue it!”

Shifting on his bedspread, George looked away and, for the first time, I pinned awkwardness to his actions. “So... I suppose that most chaps our age aren’t disgusted by that topic of discussion anymore?” he asked, his voice very quiet.

“No, I suppose not.” I ran a hand through my hair. “I’m not... adverse to the idea but... gosh, did it take a lot to work up the confidence to even suggest the idea of that to Hazel.”

“We’re having this conversation, then?” George asked me archly. “Well, I suppose you’re the only person I’d ever comfortably talk about this with so why not?”

I nodded and tried to smile at him reassuringly. I’m not sure it worked. “Well… do you really not think there’s any appeal in it? Any of it?”

“Not all of it.” He considered his words and then explained, “I’m not adverse to the idea of… the feeling, but the idea of involving somebody else is terrifying. I don’t believe that it’s normal to be scared of intimacy.”

“I don’t think so, no,” I replied cautiously. “But it must be an alright feeling because you have it.”

“Thank you, Alex.” He turned to me and regarded me with a curious look. “Do you… you and all the other chaps, you seem to feel as if your fancies for people are part of yourself. Is that really how it’s meant to feel?”

I closed my eyes and thought about Hazel, and a warm feeling started somewhere inside me, warming my chest and my face and my hands. “Yes,” I said. “Well, it’s how I feel. My feelings are... inside of me, like a little ball of emotions.”

George nodded slowly and rubbed a hand over his face. When I turned, I was shocked to find him tearful, brushing tears from where they were welling up in his eyes. “That means that it’s normal for your feelings to feel like…” He raised one hand balled up in a fist and pressed it to his chest. “They feel like this?”

“Yeah, to me.”

Swallowing hard, he blinked and shook out his hands. “For me, my feelings are out here.” He held his fist at arm’s reach away from his chest. “They’re mine, very much so, but they feel disconnected from the rest of me. And I… I don’t know if that means that I don’t love Lavinia as much as I should, but I don’t know how to love her more.”

“I think that… perhaps it’s just how your brain works,” I replied carefully, and he wiped at his face again. He took a breath that shuddered and then his upset stopped being merely tears and turned into a small, hitching sob. “Oh, _George_.”

Cautiously, I got to my feet and sat down on the edge of his bed. He looked up from where his face was squashed into his hands, going from sadness to fury and then to relief in such quick intervals that I’m surprised I grasped each emotion. “Alex. I don’t want… pity.”

“You’re sad!” I replied, and my heart seemed to twist and grow warm inside my chest when he dragged in another breath. “George, I think… it’s just how you work. You’re… not like me about a lot of things. Why should romance be any different? You love Lavinia just as much as you can, and that’s enough.”

He nodded and tried to push away his tears again. Reaching to his bedside drawer, I pulled out a handkerchief and set it into his hands. “There.”

“Thank you.” He cleaned his face and took a shuddering breath, sniffing. “I feel like… I love Lavinia very much, but that doesn’t mean what all the other boys seem to think it should. I feel like I have a… a barrier around me, around the parts of my body somebody should want to touch. I like it being there, it feels safe, because my body is my own and I would never want anybody else to touch it in that way. Ever.”

As he talked, his breaths came faster, short gasps pockmarking his speech as tears rolled down his cheeks. “I’m worried that… Lavinia will want to do that one day, won’t she? She makes enough crude jokes about it. And… I’d like to hold her hand, to kiss her, to go on dates. I’d like to take her out for meals, and go dancing! I would even like to marry her. But I never want to do _that_ with her, or be intimate at all. And I’m supposed to want that. Everybody says so.”

“But if you don’t want it, then… you shouldn’t have to put yourself through that,” I replied, speaking softly to force George to calm his breathing and listen to me. He wasn’t looking at me — he has never enjoyed making eye contact — but I looked at him, and I could tell that he was paying attention. Even though I didn’t understand, I wanted to help. The idea of George feeling so lost and confused didn’t sit right with me and my ideas of my unfailing assured best friend, and the idea of him beating himself up about this feeling was horrid to me. “If being intimate with someone else is that disgusting and awful to you, please don’t do it for the sake of making Lavinia happy. She loves you, a lot. If you explain this to her, she’ll understand.”

“I barely even understand,” he mumbled, wiping his eyes again. “I’m surprised you do.”

I shrugged. “I don’t understand. I don’t… understand how you would not want that, but I understand that you _do_ feel this way.”

When George spoke, after taking several deep breaths, he sounded hollow. “Why don’t I feel normal?”

“Anything you feel is… normal. Just because the majority doesn’t feel it, doesn’t make it _weird_.”

After a long pause, he nodded slowly. “Thank you, Alex. I’m sorry, I know this isn’t a particularly normal conversation.”

“Don’t be foolish, George. You’ve obviously been bottling this up. I’m… glad you talked to me, even if it made you sad.” I reached out a hand and set it gently on his forearm. “I don’t think you strange at all. To be honest, I don’t understand why the other fellows at school want to be intimate with every other girl they see, and _announce_ it too! It took me such a long time to want to do that with Hazel, and still it’s _only_ Hazel. Not every pretty girl I see.”

He chuckled. “We agree on that, at least.” He took a breath and sniffed. “I do wish that there was a word for this. Even Harold has words for what he is — not very nice ones, but words all the same.”

I thought that I understood what he meant: it must have felt so odd to not have a word for how he experienced romance. “Well, I’m sure one will come alone. And it mightn’t be very nice, because people aren’t, but it would be a starting point.”

“I hope so.” He cleared his face of tears and breathed in deeply, and I felt my heart shift ever so slightly inside my chest.

“ _Please_ can I hug you?”

Rolling his eyes, George smiled just a little and said, “If you insist.”

I wrapped my arms around him and felt his body give against mine, relaxing with his cheek pressed against my shoulder. “Thank you, Alex.”

Trying not to cry like he had been, I blinked determinedly and said, “Junior Pinkertons forever.”

He chuckled and released me from embrace, and we did the Junior Pinkertons handshake with wobbling smiles on our faces. 


End file.
